Charles4515

I guess the YouTube algorithm knows I am not interested in Carnival. YouTube has never recomended his channel to me. I cruised on Carnival a couple of times. About fifteen years ago and then again ten years ago and did not care for either experience. The second time someone was adament they had improved. After being fooled into it the second time I never considered it again.

For sure. When they put in Xcelerate on Celebrity and Voom on RC they did not retrofit the older ships. They just renamed it Xcelerate and Voom and the speed on Summit for example stayed the same. Only the newer ships got the real Xcelerate.

Really? I never saw him before and YouTube has never recommended him to me.

NCL definitly has wised up and reduced their September Bermuda sailings because of angry passengers issues when sailings were diverted or otherwise impacted during September hurricane season. MSC and Carnival don't have much choice if they want to sail to Bermuda. They are not regulars so they have to take the leftover slots.

I watched it and there were no ads. Anyone with an account can upload videos to YouTube. That does not make them a YouTube influencer. I don't think he is. I have uploaded a bunch of videos to Youtube. (I make mine private and password protected as they are only for groups or family) Personally to make the point he was making I would have posted screenshots of the speeds not a YouTube link to Cruise Critic. They would have made his point. Not even sure CC will allow the YouTube link to stay up.

Where were the ships sailing? Starlink has not launched all their satellites so there are coverage gaps. If you are in an area without coverage it will say Starlink but fall back to the older satellites. That has not been removed. Starlink is an add on so the cruise line is not saving money at this time installing Starlink. They are paying for both the old and the new. As far as your speeds on Celebration Carnival supplements their service with ground stations and if you are in port the ship won't be on satellites.

Horseshoe Bay is a public beach. People are allowed to bring tents like that and even their own chairs. I have seen similar tents at Horseshoe. All you need is to find an empty space. The emptyist areas of the beach are on the east end away from the facilities.

I like it. There is great snorkeling and diving. Scuba divers love it. Seven Mile beach is pretty nice. It is a pretty safe island. Location is great for western Caribbean itineraries out of Florida. Lots of reasons cruise ships have been calling there year after year.

@jean87510 may be able to advise you on what you can bring.

I never had a problem either but I arrive early. At 9:00 am. If they run out it must be later since until 11 there are plenty of large spaces and I still see umbrellas being set up. I have had people ask for my umbrella if I leave around 2. But if I leave around 3 or 4 never so I suspect that 12 to 2 might be when they could run out. Something I have heard is that the new concession operator did not have it together last season. The previous concessionaire had that issue his first year and made a big deal about ordering more umbrellas and chairs. Which did solve the issue but the government decided to bid out he concession again a couple of years ago and the new ones had big plans which were rejected for renovating the facilities. Something that people should be aware of that on windy days no one can rent umbrellas.The wind sucks them right up and they are dangerous missiles. I would say that 25% of the times I went to Horseshoe it was too windy for umbrellas. Someone I went to Bermuda solved that problem by bringing a pop out beach shade/tent. The wind did not grab that like it did beach umbrellas.

I have been getting marketing mailings from Oceania every week. Perhaps the postage was missing.

I believe there will be more. I don’t think it is expensive for them to have some people make the next level a little early and it probably has increased bookings enough to offset any cost.

Those plans were scratched after public protests. The politcal party that backed the plans for a dock lost support and no longer controls the govermnent. That party which is out of power and now in opposition still supports a dock. There is also public opposition in Cayman to any cruise ship visits similar to recent opposition in Bar Harbor and Key West.

If your phone has LTE or 5G capability it will roam in Bermuda if your carrier plan allows international roaming. There is very good LTE coverage on the island. Those are global standards so you devices will work like at home if you turn on data roaming. Just make sure you don’t have data roaming on when Prima is at sea. You don’t want to connect to Cellular at Sea. I leave my phone in Airplane mode at sea with WiFi turned on so it won’t roam at sea. On your docked ship because of the metal infrastructure you might not get a good signal. 5G is being rolled out. I don’t know how that’s gone in the last year but no one needs 5G anyway in my opinion. My phone at home says 5G and I don’t notice much difference. AT&T and Verizon have $10 a day travel passes which work well. T-Mobil it depends on your plan. Some T-Mobile plans may have throttled service.

I like to go in the morning but not early morning. In the morning it is less crowded. Arrive around 9 when the chair rentals start. But I have arrived there in the afternoon too. Crowds build up in the afternoon. I can make it work any time though. Some times I start at Warwick Long Bay and walk to Horseshoe.

I am sure they will hold the ship as long as they can but that does not mean they won’t leave. There have been several threads on Cruise Critic posted by passengers on cruise ship excursions that were left behind who thought they were not supposed to be left behind. I don’t know how NCL times their Horseshoe Bay transfer but it says four hours so probably it is impossible for it to return late. I know that NCL has some shore excursion credits. I can see that would be a reason to use the NCL transfer even though it is way overpriced. It says beach bus. Are they using Pink buses or just contracting the minibuses? A minibus would cost $7 each way, so $14 round trip. Nice profit for NCL.

It is not assured that the ship will not leave if you are on the NCL excursion shuttle if you return late. That is a myth that the cruise line might like passengers to believe. The port decides how late a ship can stay in port and since ships can not navigate the channel out of Bermuda at night it is 100% for sure they will leave whether all passengers have returned whether they are on ships excursions or other excursions to leave before Bermuda before sunset.

On the last day in Bermuda I usually go to Horseshoe because there are multiple means of transportation possibilities back. No worries. That could mean starting at Warwick Long Bay and walking to Horseshoe. With taxis or minibuses available at Horseshoe I don’t worry but I don’t cut it close. I would not go anywhere on the island where there are no taxi stands. So nope to Clearwater or John Smiths Bay, Tom Moores Jungle on the day I have to be onboard.

You were lucky the taxi came in an hour with Hitch. I have read a lot of stories where the taxi never showed up with Hitch too. You are getting a taxi with Hitch not a gig worker. The usual these days if you have to phone for a taxi or use Hitch is 30 or 40 minutes. There is a shortage of taxi drivers. People don't want to drive taxis because the costs have gone up but the fares have stayed the same for years. The government promises them there will be an increase but nothing happens. So the drivers hang out for fares at Dockyard, Horseshoe, Hamilton, the Airport and St. George where it is easy to pick up fares.

They connect with both but the ships WiFi is a so called “captive network” that uses a web page and currently there is no way for the Apple Watch to log on to captive networks except with a tedious work around. So the watch will connect to the phone via Bluetooth if it is within range.

You can ask the driver to come back but probably they won’t show up. BDA Watersports will call a taxi for you as I posted above. You can use the Hitch app if you don’t mind paying the extra fee.

Hitch is a good app to have as a backup but it is not their Uber. It is a taxi dispatch app. A taxi is sent. The taxi rate is charged plus about a 15% fee is added on.

As has been posted USD is accepted everywhere in Bermuda and is on par with Bermuda’s currency but you would not be able to exchange for their currency anyway at AAA. They won’t have it. Bermuda currency is not exchangeable outside Bermuda.

As I said I don’t think they found someone to pay more and took the cabin away. I do think that the cabin might not have been available to begin with, like for example an original booking of the cabin was canceled by mistake, some other double booking error or it was defective, that the cabin was and should not have been available for Royal Up. I suppose it is possible they wanted the cabin for an insider.

This story sounds like BS to me. Do you think RCI would tell one customer that they gave the cabin they paid for away to a higher paying customer they found? No way....